Legal paperwork needed if you’ve been married before

If you’ve been alive for long enough, your life will have changed so much that it looks completely different from where you started.

It may even look completely different to what you thought possible.

Finding love, and finding happiness, is often the impossibilities that become real, and then – we get to do the paperwork to make it legal.

So – you’ve been married before, right?

We’re excited with you that you’ve found a new lease on happiness.  Let’s talk you through the paperwork required.

If you’re a South African Citizen, you will need the Divorce decree from the clerk of the court, in the place you were divorced.  This is often a mess, because your life has moved on.  Currently, the Department of Justice does NOT notify the Department of Home Affairs when a divorce is finalized, so it has become YOUR problem to update your marital status at the Department of Home Affairs, in person.

Here’s what you do if it has not been updated after your divorce:

1. Get the cool people from Tie the Knot Cape Town to handle your wedding!
2. Take the form sent by Ava, and apply for your Divorce Decree at the Clerk of the Court / Attorneys who handled your divorce.  They need to sign on the form for you to show their involvement.
3. Take the same form, and your thumb, and a CERTIFIED copy of your decree, and go to a DHA branch that can do the online verification.  (Caledon, Wynberg, Barrack Street in Cape Town.  Please check with your closest branch if not listed.)
4. Show them the paperwork and ask them to update your status.

If you go to a branch that can not do the immediate online update, they will take the document and submit to Pretoria to have it updated.

Let’s say your status has now been updated.  What do you need next?

1. A certified copy of your ID card (for now, or your ID document, but this will expire soon).
2. A certified copy of your divorce decree
3. Your wet ink affidavit per the template received from Ava
4. If applicable, a copy of your attorney’s letter that states the broad terms of your prenuptial agreement with your fiancée.

We look forward to sending you the document pack once you sign up with us.